The palmed card: Bear disabled comments, but she did not delete them. If you go to her post, you'll find every comment there that were from people "calling her on her bullshit."

The funny?Lanning bans people from her LJ for fear of them calling her on "her bullshit."

[ETA: After rereading Lanning's post, I realize it's about Files' turning off comments, not about Bear freezing the thread. I could point to many failfans who freeze threads and turn off comments (Coffeeandink being a fine example), but I'll simply note this: Gemma Files made her statement in public and signed her name with all the courage of John Hancock. She knew the failfans could comment at their own sites if they pleased.]

In the comments, ithiliana says, "That's proactive censorship of a style Orwell would be mighty proud to own."

Ithiliana's way with words isn't the clearest: Does she really think Orwell liked to censor? I suspect she was trying to say that freezing comments on a post is "Orwellian," which is to say, reminiscent of the government in 1984.

The funny? Ithiliana also bans people who call her on her bullshit.

[ETA: See the comments. I misunderstood ithiliana's comment because her quoting style sucks. Which doesn't alter my point about pseudonymous people who shut out others, then mock those who shut them out.]

Is anything funnier than cowards damning others from their hiding place?

Why, yes. There's another element of cowardice in lanning and ithiliana's tactics: Elizabeth Bear and Gemma Files do not hide their names when they say what they think.

ETA: This reminds me why I respect Tempest, for all that she attacks people who disagree with her neoliberal faith, resists educating herself about her class privilege, and bans people so she can speak in an echo chamber: At least she's brave enough to own her words.

ETA 2: To be clear, I don't think any of these people should be despised as individuals. They're products of their environment. They think they're doing good when they attack those who don't think as they do. They're no different than the Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus called hypocrites: they have a faith that explains the world to them, so they fail to see their hypocrisy. Someday, their understanding may grow.

ETA 3: I have trouble parsing lanning's prose as well as ithiliana's. See ETA's above.

ETA 4: Ditto.

ETA 5: Why does Lanning include "white women's tears" as a tag on her post? There's nothing in Gemma Files' original post about wanting to cry or even about being sad. Heck, "fuck it" seems like the antithesis of "white women's tears" to me. I realize people read too quickly on the web (look at how I misunderstood bits of what lanning and ithiliana said), but "white women's tears" had to come straight from Lanning's belief that everything is about race, 'cause reality offered nothing to inspire it.

ETA 7: After I pointed out she was wrong, Ithiliana updated her post. She excuses her leaping to assumptions by claiming someone who doesn't sound like me sounds like me, though a google of my blog will reveal that I use "folks" beaucoup.

Here's the funny bit: She says, "Will posted from another open ID to correct us, but I've banned that as well because I am a well known evil censoring pagan queer commie bitch who hates white men." I suspect all censors giggle self-righteously about those who question their fondness for censorship.